Of Mermaids and Men
by polandATEmyTACOS
Summary: Gwendolyn Marrow has been living under a bridge ever since her family left her for using magic. She doesn't quite know what to do until she finds out she is a witch. The problem is now she is even more lost..When she meets a certain red head maybe he can help. Guide her?
1. Strange Odd Curious

Do things make sense in life? Most often not. It didn't quite make sense when certain things happened in my childhood. Peculiar things. Chairs floating, my hair turning blue, birds dying whenI was near them to long. What made sense was that my parents harbored a deep fear of my existence. My father called me unnatural. My mother...well she didn't talk much. Or at least she had enough tact to not say how she felt straight to my face. I guess that was, in some odd way, a kindness.

But as I said, my father wouldn't hesitate to show how he felt. On my tenth birthday, it was quite clear that he had had enough. He gave me an ultimatum. Stop doing these odd things that scared people or leave and never return. I told him I had no control over the strange occurences. By nightfall I was on the street with only £300, food for the week, some clothes, a coat, and a case to carry it all. By morning I was stationed under a bridge where I would live out a year of my life scrounging for food and trying not to freeze to death. Sickness was constant. The wind and the sun were not my friends. And throughout it all, the peculiar incedences continued. But the most peculiar of them all occured on my eleventh birthday. As I lay sleeping under the snow covered bridge, I recieved a letter. Had I been awake to read it, it would have said...

**Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry**

**Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore**

**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer,**

**Chief Warlock,Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)**

**Dear Ms. Marrow,**

**We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry. ..**


	2. The Boy I Met Beneath the Bridge

Around 3:00 AM on a snowy January morning there was not a sound to be heard. The streets were quiet and the water under an old bridge near Ottery St. Catchpole was frozen over. And while the quiet gave the morning a sense of normalcy, it was , in reality going to be the oddest morning in a long while for one eleven year old girl. Because this morning, as she lay sleeping under the crumbling bridge, a small grey owl brought her a gift. It's journey to find the girl had not been hard but rest assured it was to be a difficult ending.

The small bird was carrying a curious letter. The letter was an invitation in to a world known by many and yet by few. And after the feathered being dropped the letter on to a small bundled lump of blankets that lay under the bridge it perched next to the bundle and waited.

* * *

Gwendolyn's P.O.V.

My dreams have not very pleasant these past few days. They have consisted of angry birds. Now birds are not a problem for most people but I am afraid of them. Don't exactly know why. Maybe it has to do with the fact that when I get near them they die. It isn't very pleasant. So when I awaken to an owl sitting in front of me the first thing I will do is swat at it.

"Get out of here you bird-brained twat."

And the owl just continued to stare at me. Like it was waiting. Didn't it know it could die?

'Oh well. No sense in going back to sleep', I thought. There really wasn't any sense about it. The bird was going to be staying for awhile apparently. Throwing the dirt stained blankets off I headed towards the water of the frozen creek to see if I had a chance at getting some water. No such luck. The ice was even thicker than yesterday.

I was more or less distracted from my poking at the ice with a stick when a branch snapped behind me. I turned around to see two boys about my age looking at me. For awhile we just stared. They were quite odd looking. There clothes were at any rate. They both had red hair that reminded me of fire and more freckles than I thought a person could have. The older boy seemed to be slightly more intrested in staring at me while the younger boy soon lost interest and shifted his gaze toward the ruddy owl which had parked its arse near an envelope that was near my bedding.

"-are you?"

I realized the older boy was speaking to me.

"Sorry? I didn't catch that."

"I said, who are you?", he repeated. His voice was softer than I expected.

"...Gwendolyn. My name's Gwendolyn. You?"

"Bill Weasley."


End file.
